Through the Mirror
by Gloria Byrd
Summary: Solas is contained, trapped within an eluvian by the Inquisition. However, an assault on Skyhold by Fen'Harel's forces may ruin everything the Inquisition has worked to create...and destroy. Arira Lavellan is gravely wounded in the seige. She must get to her vhenan before the forces of the Dread Wolf do, or the sacrifices of her companions may be for naught.


Disclaimer: I do not own any properties of Dragon Age.

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She stretched a shaky hand out to the fogged surface of the mirror to wipe away the obstruction. Her fingers lingered on the surface as she studied the barely visible reflection and the realm beyond. Beyond, there sat a man, his hands pressed to the surface, head hanging low, floor wet beneath his face as though from tears. She, too, let tears caress her ashen cheeks, ashen for the anguish at seeing her lover this way, for seeing a man entombed by his people's creation and for his desire to better the world. And––she despised admitting it––she was enthralled by him. Her heart was a drum against her hollow ribs. She moved to press her other hand to her heart, surprised as she was to find she still had one, when she remembered with an inward grimace that this very man had stolen her arm. Her faith. Her trust. The Anchor. And her heart.

She let her head hang as his did. She let her tears mar the ornate rug beneath her. She pressed her hand harder against the glass, so hard she was astounded it didn't crack. She wasn't sure if that would be so terrible. Would it free him? Or would it forever imprison him? She wept more at the notion of the latter.

"_Vhenan_." The word echoed on the stone walls like the whispers of spirits in the Veil he loved so dearly, maybe more than her. Her back racked with sobs. _When would these damn tears end?_

"_Vhenan_."

Her mind battled between ignoring his declaration of love or responding. If she did reply, hundreds more choices would appear before her. This was a journey littered with infinitely branching paths, and so far, she did not feel confident about any of them.

"_Vhenan_," she replied, cursing herself as she did so in more ways than one. She had doomed herself with a single utterance. Her needy heart would damn Thedas. "I am here," she reassured him, though it was unnecessary. She was certain he had heard her, just as she could hear his soothing voice.

On the other side of the mirror, he scrambled to his feet. "Run," he whispered with a hand on the mirror, his gray-blue eyes wide with terror. "Run!" She stood stupidly still even as his fists pounded against the glass.

Screams and shouts arose outside the eluvian chamber.

"Assault on Skyhold!"

"Arm the trebuchets!"

"Where's the Inquisitor?"

Arira Lavellan leapt to her feet, pulling her long, red-orange hair into a ponytail. She cast a final glance upon Solas before grabbing her sword and rushing to join the panicking throng outside the door. Upon opening the entry to the garden, the screams, shouts, and blasts were magnified. Stones of the walls tumbled through the air, as small as birds they seemed from their height, until they crushed several people beneath them when they landed. Acrid smoke already choked the air and Arira's lungs. Magical energy hummed everywhere. The garden was on fire. People in Chantry robes prodded others before them. Arira seized the arm of a passing Inquisition soldier. Her eyes widened momentarily at the leanness of his arm and at the youthful face that greeted her. His dark brown eyes widened in turn, but for a different reason.

"Inquisitor!" He pressed a fist to his chest in a quick salute.

"Stop that!" she demanded. "No time for that. What's the situation?"

"Oh. Elves are attacking the front. Most of them are mages. They're Dalish and city elves." His words melded together in a tangled mess. He swept sweat away from his brow with dark hair plastered to it.

"How are the defenses faring?"

"Not well. They've dragons! And they've assassins, faster than any I've seen!"

"What's your name?"

He started at the question but answered anyway. "Ostyn."

"Ostyn," she spoke as calmly as she could, an astonishingly simple task, "make sure no one gets to this room." She pointed at the eluvian chamber behind her with a bare hand at which she frowned. It would be unpleasant to swing around her sword without gloves.

"Yes, ser," he replied a touch hesitantly. He saluted again and marched before the door where he stood with wobbly legs, sword needlessly poised for nonexistent approaching enemies. Her lips parted at the foolish yet endearing sight. She wished she was still that innocent.

Shaking herself, she trotted off to Skyhold's courtyard. There, Inquisition-issued swords clashed with blades of ancient, rune-infused steel and dragon bone. Arrows fletched with flamboyant parrot feathers and tipped with gleaming metal whistled past her, embedding themselves in walls, the ground, and, more often than not, Inquisition soldiers. Cullen called over the din of battle despite his locked and struggling position with a bulky elf in full golden armor. Rogues ducked beneath arms and slid between people's dancing legs, sliding their daggers in one second and the opponent falling dead in the next.

What was normally a rare and minor fear became the foremost thought in her mind at the sight of it.

Magic.

Inquisitor Arira Lavellan was not often petrified. Years of battling mages had seen to that. In fact, her unlikely romance with Solas assuaged most of her terrors with his explanations and vigilant introductions to the supernatural. But seeing blasts of fire and ice, hearing her soldiers wail for their mothers as the magics of the Fade claimed their bodies made her own frame as rigid as a mountain, except for the slight trembling of her limbs.

A monstrous shadow that enveloped the courtyard in darkness aroused her from her petrification. The whoosh of wings, the deafening roar, the tail that lashed over her head as it passed brought her breaths of exhilaration. How she missed this.

"Yeah! Finally, a dragon!" She grinned at Iron Bull's booming voice and turned her head to see him leaping off a turret with his sword tip directed at the ground. The blade plunged into the beast's hide. A louder roar seemed to explode Arira's eardrums. Iron Bull's horns disappeared as the dragon wheeled into a valley below Skyhold.

"Watch it, Quizzy!" Sera leapt from a fence post, loosed an arrow in midair, and landed on her feet just as the arrow plunged into the side of an enemy's head. "You missed the fun!" she exclaimed before running off and firing three arrows at once, all of them planting into adversaries. Arira smirked as she tightened her grip on her haft and dove into the ocean of swords, daggers, and crackling energy. She deflected a blow from a sword and sunk her blade into the form behind it before kicking an approaching rival at her rear with her foot in an area that honorable men would question. She swung in a wide arc, eviscerating several around her. Her weapon gleamed in the air before finishing off the fallen foe. Her blade whipped like a tornado, and soon, it gleamed a very different color. Her face was fixed in a mad grin. Even with one arm, she was terrific!

A blade caught her side. At least, she told herself that. It felt much worse than just a catch. The blade, dagger probably, felt like it had sunk to its hilt. She staggered. An arrow pierced her leg, right by the knee. A sword caught the arm that once possessed the Anchor. She grunted with the effort of deflecting the blows from the shining shapes surrounding her. None fell now. She was about to. A blade came down upon her head. Was this it? After years of fighting, a single blade would be the Inquisitor's doom? The Hero of Thedas would perish by the hand of her own kind, on her own ground? Solas. Solas! She would never see him again. Never––

A shield bearing the eye of the Inquisition deflected the sword. Cassandra Pentaghast shoved the blade away and thrusted her own through the adversary's chest through a slit in the armor. The clatter of the enemy's armor was lost in the uproar. Cassandra blocked another sword and elbowed an approaching rogue as she knelt, twining her arm around Arira and helping her stand. Arira grimaced with the effort, a small growl emitting from her throat, but she hid it within seconds. She could not let her soldiers see her weakness. They needed something to believe in.

"Where are the healing poultices?" Arira grated, hobbling to where she could have something to lean against while Cassandra defended her.

"There are none left," the Seeker yelled over the tumult.

"What about Dorian or Vivienne?"

"They're not here, and most of our mages were killed in the first volley."

Arira cursed harsher than a Rivani raider. "What do you think, Cassandra?" Arira leaned her head against the wall momentarily, closing her eyes. She trusted the Seeker enough to let her guard down for a few seconds.

Cassandra hesitated for barely an instant; however, it was a long enough delay for one who knew Cassandra to take note of. "I believe the Maker will smile upon our valor whatever the outcome of today is." She averted another swing with minimal effort. Her mouth opened as if to say something else. It snapped shut when the shadow returned.

"Dragon!"

"Move!"

"Get inside!"

"Everybody get to the––"

Cassandra had already ushered Arira into the keep as the shadow descended upon them. The demise of everyone not swift enough to find shelter was evident heartbeats before the dragon crashed into Skyhold, ending their pounding hearts forever.

"Cassandra!" Dust was the air, was her lungs, her eyes. She coughed, but it did not subside. Blinded, she stumbled through the familiar hallways. Her outstretched hands felt the grooves and caulking of the stone. She blinked. Flickering pinpricks of light appeared. Her foot caught on a stair. She tumbled forward. The arrow in her leg struck the step. She yelped like a wounded wolf. Blood dripped from her wounds. She brushed soft yet trembling fingers against the hilt emerging from her abdomen. It was a dull throb when she stayed still. But when she moved . . .

She shook her head. She had faced worse than this. She had been riddled with Venatori arrows before, frozen by despair demons, set afire by rage demons, lashed with lightning from pride demons. She had watched as her arm disintegrated before her eyes from the Anchor she had received mistakenly from an ancient red lyrium-darkspawn magister. She narrowed her eyes, focusing on the single step in front of her. It was just mere inches tall. Since when had inches been her adversary? She had killed over a dozen dragons. This would be effortless.

Well, it turned out it was _not_ effortless.

By the time she made it up five steps, her side and her leg would have been better off frozen by a despair demon. At least then she wouldn't feel it.

She pressed against the heavy wooden door. It creaked open. It occurred to her then just how silent it was, like snow blanketed her ears. Were they still fighting outside? Had the Inquisition, had Thedas lost?

She stepped out of the doorway on silent feet. As a warrior, it was more trying than in her younger days as a Dalish elf, but it seemed to be working. She could hardly hear her own footfalls. Josephine's room opened up around her. Papers were the rugs adorning the floor; it was that disordered. The elves had been here. Arira ran her fingers over the Dalish banner hanging on the wall in a daze. She had wanted to take that down years ago, as soon as Solas had told her the truth about the Dalish, about the _vallaslin_. She was about to run her fingers over where her long-gone Mythal _vallaslin_ once resided when she heard footsteps behind her. It seemed even a warrior and former Dalish elf could sneak better than this lout. She remained still until she knew the opponent stood directly behind her before she snatched the banner, tugged it loose from the wall, and wrapped it around the foe's head in one swift motion. It did, however, not feel pleasant for her wounds.

"It's me! Stop it!" The voice alone was enough to give away the identity of who she had tangled in the banner, that and the short stature that had confronted her when she attacked him.

"Varric!"

"Ah, yes," he grunted as he untangled himself from the banner. "Writer, occasionally unwelcome tagalong. I think you know the rest." His miserable eyes did not match the grin and the idiosyncratic voice of the famed Varric Tethras that he displayed.

"Varric," she repeated feebly as she knelt to embrace him. She buried her face in his shoulder and released the few tears she permitted herself to.

His hands held suspended for a moment until he wrapped his arms around her with a smile. His eyes widened at the sight of the hilt protruding from her side. He edged his own abdomen away so as not to disturb it. "Um, Inquisitor? You've got a . . . you've got a bit of a dagger sticking out of you."

She pulled away from him gradually but kept her hands on his shoulders. "I'm lost." Her lips quivered. "Skyhold is taken over. I may have to . . ." She averted her gaze, squeezed her eyes shut. Varric was one of the only people she could reveal her weaknesses to. Varric and Solas. Varric nodded somberly and led her to sit on the ground against the wall next to him. His hand remained on her shoulder as she continued. His eyes never left her. "I may have to kill Solas." The words came as a whisper. Even so, it seemed too horrible to even utter. Again, silence was the sheet that encompassed the world.

"I don't think I can kill him," she whispered. The words just barely left her lips. "I must choose between what I have served with my hands . . ." she held her bloodied, calloused hand before her, "or who I have served with my heart." The lack of his immediate response plunged her into more agony than her physical wounds.

"Don't make it philosophy," Varric finally replied. "You've made the right choices so far. Just let it happen again. Let luck decide for you."

She shook her head and made to stand when Varric set his hand on her other shoulder and forced her back down. "Where are you going?"

"My soldiers are dying out there, and I'm sitting, resting in here. I know what I need to do."

"Wait one second. Pause. Breathe." He paused for emphasis. "_Breathe_. You are not the Inquisitor. You are Arira Lavellan. You are not a fabled hero. You are a Dalish elf of Clan Lavellan. Your people are fighting for your future, but it is your choice, right here, right now, that will define it." She relaxed as she peered into his boring gaze. "What would Arira Lavellan do for the people who lifted her up to be unreal? And what would she do for the man who called her _'vhenan'_?"

"Are you saying––"

"I am saying nothing." He sent her a poignant smile. "I am merely playing the part of storyteller." He winked a tear-filled eye. "And occasionally, unwelcome tagalong."

Her expression was a mirror image of his as she embraced him once more. "Thank you Varric, my very welcome tagalong." She wished to see him beam one last time, but all that remained of him in her mind as she turned away were the streaks of gray at his temples, the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes in which hope dwindled, and yet there was a spark in them that pushed her through the tunnels of Skyhold despite her aching wounds. As she stalked through passageways, cobwebs became a veil on her hair. Dust became her maquillage. Her tattered robes with sparse armor were her dress as she marched forward unto her wedding to destiny.

She emerged from the tunnels near the garden. It was oddly still, like a forest with no animal life. A few bodies dressed in Chantry robes lay near the doors leading to the garden. She prayed this battle would be the last carnage Thedas would have to see in a long time. She stumbled on something. She looked back. There was a young man in Inquisition uniform. His sweeping dark hair did not mask the brown eyes that stared at nothing. His arm was outstretched toward the door to the eluvian chamber. His sword lay several feet away, too far for him to reach, she realized when she saw dozens of parrot-fletched arrows emerging from his back. She knelt beside him and closed his eyes. Ostyn. That was his name. She said a prayer for him and wished she could do the same for all the fallen before she marched to the shadowed, cavernous mouth before her. The doors were open. She held her sword poised for an assault. Her elven eyes adapted to the light momentarily. However, the eluvian's greenish-blue surface already emitted an eerie light. A hand struck the glass on the other side. Solas. She sheathed her sword. Ran to him. Run. Run! _Run!_ Her feet thumped against the stones. She pulled a pendant from her belt, an adornment previously hidden in the folds of her clothes. A wolf's jaw on a string. She clutched it in her hand as if it was his hand already. Her hand with the pendant inside reached for his, even though it couldn't possibly pass through the glass. She had to find a way to release him. They would be together again. _Vhenan. Vhenan!_

_I'm coming,_ vhenan!

Something struck her back. She continued, ignoring the needles that seemed to prick her skin in that spot. Another thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. She stumbled. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. She fell. Thunk. Thunk. She stretched out a hand to Solas. His face was right up to the mirror's surface. His breath fogged the glass. His eyes stared at her, wide with dread. He screamed, "_Vhenan!_" over and over. Just as many arrows entered her back. It was hard to breathe. Hard to think. Impossible to move. Except for her hand. Her hand inched closer. An elf, veiled and draped in cloth so dark he appeared to be made of shadows, stepped over her. "_Fen'Harel ma halam._"

Arira sputtered blood as she tried to speak. She stretched her hand out to the mirror. One last touch. The pendant graced the mirror's surface. With that, the seal was broken. Light shot forth from the pane. The glass shattered but hung in midair. Solas scrambled from the eluvian as the archer bowed. Solas's hands hovered over her quivering body. He cradled Arira. His tears dropped to her skin. "_Vhenan_," he whispered into her hair as he knelt over her. Her hand now clutched a fistful of his clothes. "_Ir abelas. Ir abelas._" At an idea, his eyes shot open. He tucked a strand of red hair behind her pointed ear before pulling her into the eluvian. He wove his fingers in an intricate spell above her. Sweat beaded on his forehead with concentration. His skin paled. A glyph rose above her and then dropped into her, her body absorbing the magic. Her wounds would heal in time. A long time. He traced her cheekbone with his finger, wishing he had told her of his plans at the glen instead of the _vallaslin_. Everything would have been so different. Maybe better.

He pulled himself away from her and with a final glance, sealed the eluvian behind him. He picked up his wolf jaw necklace and scowled at the archer as he passed. He strode out of the eluvian chamber with his hands crossed behind his back, his head held high. Elves emerged from the shadows of the greenery. Fen'Harel's forces had prevailed against those of Skyhold in the first major battle against Thedas. The Dread Wolf surveyed the crowd anxiously awaiting his next commands.

"The Inquisition is defeated," he declared loudly enough for all of them to hear; not all of them fit in the garden. "We will now conquer Orlais, Ferelden, Tevinter. Arlathan will rise again!"

The mass cheered. Solas watched them with tired eyes. _Ir abelas, vhenan_, he thought to himself. _I will make peace for us to live in, peace fit for my bride, my Queen._

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**A/N: **

***Fen'Harel ma halam = the Dread Wolf ends you**

**Ir abelas = I am sorry**

****According to elven language wiki**

**Check out my other short stories and my longer works: Immortal and Acceler8! Also learn about my newly published book on my profile page. Thanks for reading!**


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